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Well, the presumed merger between the two Jacobs did not seem to be going well. Swirls of cold air and arcs of electricity danced through the air around the two of them as whatever process unfolded. As they seemed to coalesce into a single body, ice crystals began to form on their skin. The light around them seemed to be subtly sucked in or he was somehow radiating darkness.
Not really knowing what to do, I focused on healing my injuries from the battle with Lecrouss and Mummified Jacob. At least Katlyn didn’t appear to be worse for wear despite me having seen her flung through multiple walls at hypersonic speeds. My cousin briefly looked me over to verify I wasn’t critically injured before she turned her attention to the merging Jacobs.
(Katlyn) This is acting like an infection that modifies how his body works – trying to convert it to something resembling the “metabolism” of the Space Moss. Warmth, nutrients, and stimulants might help with that. If fictional holos are any sort of a guideline, this is an attempt at possession – complicated by inviting it – so a mnemonic enhancer might work. So might some tricorder fiddling, since we now seem to have a spare at the moment.
(Vanatica) So he’s under attack from an undead spirit version of himself. Any form of positive energy would help. Since its largely mental, perhaps directly applied to the forehead would be best. For the love of the Force, this sort of nonsense happens in fairy tales, we’d be just as well off trying true love’s kiss!
I spent twenty-five obols on a healing effect for Jacob, then stooped down to grab one of the dropped tricorders.
(Vanatica) Jacob’s been big on finding “companionship” everywhere we go, perhaps he had found someone here before we attempted this assault?
(Katlyn) Well, he is married….
Ugh, forgot about the pirate lady. Probably attempted to purge it from my memory just for the absurdity of that trope invocation talent she possessed that forced them to get married via a slip of the tongue. Which meant she in some way possessed a magical specialty in fairy tale physics which was exactly what Jacob needed right now….
As useful as the Anomaly has proven itself to be, I find the ways it twists the rules of logic and reason to be headache inducing.
I turned towards one of the hapless attendants that was attempting to make themselves useful to the victors.
(Vanatica) Go find Kuroko Hatfield. She was last seen at the Infrastructure Department Meeting Room. Bring her here with all speed.
It took a moment to figure out which way to hold the tricorder, once I had that figured out suddenly all the buttons and lights seemed intuitive in how they worked. Which made little sense whatsoever. Perhaps such intuition was an innate part of the tricorder itself that was imparted into whoever used it? Did the reality warping nature of the device preclude simply using an actually intuitive interface instead of relying on whatever this effect was? I barely had time to ponder more on that before the attendant returned with Kuroko far more quickly than I had anticipated.
Kuroko seemed to understand what was “needed” as she rushed forward to kiss Jacob. I restrained myself from voicing doubts about how much “true love” was involved given that their marriage was arranged by an accidental invocation of a trope that neither wanted. Going through the motions of marriage to avoid the backlash for disobeying a trope hardly seemed to constitute anything I would be willing to call love. Perhaps that was the point of the talent – going through the motions and rituals of the various tropes in hopes of making them real. Like a magical cargo cult.
By this point I had gotten the tricorder scanning what was going on with Jacob. That revealed that an entity powered by negative energy, negative emotions, hatred and jealousy of the living, and the memories of countless evil deeds was currently being burned away by a torrent of positive emotional energy – “True Love’s Kiss” = although the negative energy infection was going to take some time to eliminate.
(Kuroko) You big dummy! We keep having to solve things THAT way and we’re going to get sucked into a happily ever after with a dozen beautiful children and no more adventures!
Yeah, definitely going through the motions there. It was kinda sad that even the more traditional Varen Sith families seemed to possess a healthier marriage than these two. At least Varen Sith acknowledged passion as a vital part of a marriage, even in marriages of convenience. I briefly considered what would happen if I announced that I was legally capable of recognizing and dissolving marriages in the Protectorate and how Fairy Tale tropes would respond to that news. The fact that the tricorder seemed capable of scanning such Fairy Tale nonsense had implications I was hesitant to dwell on.
(Jacob) Um, sorry. I kind of had little other choice there. A phaser going into overload might have killed us all, and I thought I could take him. But now I have a scanner log of True Love’s Kiss to send home. Scientific proof of True Love. Is this something I should frame and hang on a wall somehow?
Bleh….
(Katlyn) Cute, if corny. So…. Various levels of disaster all averted then?
I suspected so, but there was substantial cleanup to do even if we left a lot of the work of rebuilding to the locals. On that note I turned to the former guard for Lecrouss.
(Vanatica) Alright, do you know who I am? I mean, beyond any interactions today?
(Guard, somewhat bemusedly) Well, I DIDN’T until now.
(Vanatica) Right, so either living under a rock, or from another timeline then.
That did line up with the implication that Lecrouss killed a version of Father, which obviously hadn’t happened in my timeline (or at least hadn’t since I came to the Anomaly). While that was a bit of an unpleasant thought, I decided to trust that Father wasn’t likely to get himself killed like that. Especially since he had already survived an encounter with Lecrouss before I was even born. Still, it had been quite some time since I had heard any news from back home. While pondering that, I turned to the Emir.
(Vanatica) Alright, did you get it all out of your system? Or do we need to get you to discharge more power?
(Katlyn) Hard to say he’s unconscious. And snoring.
(Jacob) I will scan him! Must know even if it is obvious! Yep, basically he’s been getting used to having himself supercharged, boosted, and on magical stimulants. And it was suddenly pulled. He’s pretty thoroughly crashed. There’s actually still a fair amount of power left in the reserves – but still a ninety-five percent or more reduction of what was running into him. Shall we notify the remaining city engineers so they can basically get him disconnected while the high voltage is still offline?
(Katlyn) Yes, that is probably best.
(Jacob) Alright, the engineers recommended having him out of range of the power system when he wakes up. Apparently this sort of thing gets addictive. Or they said they have insulated rooms. Perhaps we put him in an insulated room and find a way to use a carrier wave on an x-ray or other harmless form of radiation to extract power into a crystal battery. Might be good for something later just have to find the resonant frequency of the energy in his cells and then we can extract it easily.
After the bulk of the cleanup was done, the city council wished to sincerely thank us for our efforts, and made noises about providing a reward if we so desired. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do regarding a reward. It was easy to graciously decline them when you are a member of the richest and most powerful family in galactic history, but right now we didn’t have a lot of access to those resources either. On the other hand, it wasn’t like a lot of what the locals had was of particular value to us given the differences in technologies. Besides, we had already gotten an ample “deposit” of obols for our efforts here anyway.
We did ask for their assistance in locating the Piece of Lindral we knew was in the region or at least help us narrow down where to look. We already had it down to down to a mere two cities, but beyond that we were running on guesses. From what they knew or suspected, they pointed to the city of Ernharite. It was apparently notable for making fairly extensive use of other forms of magic (instead of what was easiest locally). Location was about a thousand kilometers North and a little to the East. Well, it was a place worth investigating if only because it sounded like the place had a substantial information trade with other regions going on.
Meanwhile interrogating Lecrouss’s bodyguard reinforced the notion that if he wasn’t from our timeline, he was from a fairly similar one. He was, however, mostly just a mercenary – and never seemed to pay a lot of attention to Lecrouss’s enemies list after finding out that at least three-quarters of the people on it were either dead or fictional. He spent most of his time on shooing people away; “bad to disturb the crazy Sith”. After all, if Lecrouss couldn’t handle a fight, it’s not like he could do much.
(Katlyn) Was wondering why that monster needed a guard.
(Vanatica) Rather brave and civic minded of him.
I couldn’t help but let a little sarcasm seep into my voice on that. It was obvious he didn’t have a lot of REAL scruples, regardless of what he told himself. Basically a cheap thug. Still, he might have actually been helping a little bit. Although if he’d had the nerve or intelligence to betray Lecrouss, Lecrouss would not have picked him.
(Vanatica) So, I take it there aren’t more Sith allied to Lecrouss about, an army hiding out in the forest, or ready access to a fleet then? Not that I find this likely, but it is worth asking.
(Bodyguard) There was some looney who wanted to learn Sith Necromancy Sorcery from him! As if that ever worked! Guy’d been at it for CENTURIES, and still wasn’t happy with it! She had a bit of a fleet though. Traded him some cloning tanks for lessons. Dunno where she got the things; seemed to just get them ready in a few hours.
At first I figured that was just her having them dropped from orbit, but it occurred to me that this could be an instance of her using Vespene Gas. In that case our killing Lecrouss (even if temporarily) may well have averted a bigger crisis of him coming under the Gamesters’ sway. And using Green as part of the process likely reset any control they might have had over him, not that I suspect there was much that could be done to manipulate someone that badly damaged and obsessively focused. Now, whether he was able to resurrect himself with those clone tanks stashed on the Anomaly or if he ended up back at whatever timeline he came from was an open question.
(Jacob) Oh yay, she got lessons….
(Bodyguard) Not really my business though.
Katlyn then pulled out a datapad with a picture of Seras and showed it to the bodyguard.
(Katlyn) Is this her?
(Bodyguard) That’s the crazy bint all right!
I was mildly surprised at the sudden flash of anger within myself at the insult directed at Seras. It wasn’t because this was a metaphorical commoner insulting a member of the extended family, I’ve dealt with that before. Ah, it was anger directed at the Gamesters and how their manipulations were degrading my alternate sister and thus the family. Just another reminder to myself to make sure to let the Gamesters know just how much of a mistake that choice was.
(Katlyn) Alright, when and where?
(Bodyguard) About six months ago. She got him some more cloning tanks and eventually pointed him towards this weird place about two months back. Something about finding a way to generate magic locally and using it to keep his undead creations going forever. Promised to help him if he found the key they needed.
(Vanatica) Timeline roughly lines up. Still a cold lead though.
(Bodyguard) Dammit, now I’ll have to find another job. Lecrouss will probably be cranky about me running off.
(Katlyn) Eh, if he comes back, I’ll kill him again. Maybe I’ll get the bounty this time!
It felt weird for anyone to be able to make that sort of boast about killing Lecrouss of all people, let alone for someone like my cousin or I to be making. Nonetheless, we had managed to fight him, an evil Jacob, and dealt with the Emir all simultaneously and came out – not just as the survivors – but as the undisputed victors. Once again, it seemed that our time on the Anomaly has proven to be of immense value.
(Katlyn) Alright, what do we know about Ernharite andwhoever is likely using the artifact?
(Vanatica) According to the locals, Ernharite is a well established city, notable for running a magical research program and collecting a considerable archive of techniques from other hexes. They do seem to have some success at staying out of the periodic chain reactions of crazed engineers, but the locals have doubts as to whether putting up with cabals of crazed occultists is actually any better.
(Jacob) Yeah, that is a bit of a side-grade, especially if those cults come up with new and innovative ways of ending the world.
(Vanatica) Their opinion is that importing outside systems is fine – but they invariably have their own downsides that their origin hexes are so used to that they don’t even think to mention them. A bit of “If the Makers had wanted them to use those magic systems, they would be native here” sort of thing.
(Katlyn) A bit short-sighted and lacking in self-awareness there. So what is the easiest means to get to Ernharite? Preferably unnoticed so we don’t get blasted by the maintenance systems?
(Vanatica) I am guessing a slow boat loaded with luxury goods? Those are all over the place and you would have to be really nuts to blast the people who are bringing in the stuff that you want.
(Katlyn) Doable, so what passes for luxury goods around here?
(Vanatica) Usual stuff, fine wines, spices, specialty foods, rare books and such. More unusual goods around here in high demand include imported youth, vigor, and pleasure. All of that is a bit illicit since the extraction is frequently involuntary or risks transferring animalistic qualities. Also things like personal enhancement devices, magical information, and high quality dreamstones. We should be able to scrounge up some of the more conventional stuff without too much of a problem. We don’t deal in the slave trade or the sub-products of that since the Force tends to frown upon such things.
(Jacob) Selling books sounds like the simplest. We can make all types of books really easily and you have to actually read them to know if they are actually special. So I don’t think that is all that hard to fake, and who is going to bother someone hauling a bunch of books. Wait, since your aging process is tied to your memories, would this mean that Green could be used as a youth drug for your people?
(Katlyn) Indeed that is likely feasible for our people. Not that I would recommend forgetting things just for a little more youth.
I had briefly wondered, since our aging seems to be tied to our memories, if extracting youth from us would gain us more experiences or memories in turn. Maybe from alternate versions of ourselves or pulled from the Galactic Mind somehow? Perhaps that was the source of why memories made one age: by pulling in and integrate aspects of others or the Galactic Mind into ourselves we were slowly “contaminating” our Force Spirits and thus losing sync with our bodies? Maybe aging was a side effect of our slow integration with the Galactic Mind and its slow transcendence.
Oh well, time for such thought experiments and how to ethically test them later.
It wasn’t too hard to get our river boat refit and procure a “large” supply of luxury goods. It was odd to have to actually consider budgeting and short term returns on trade deals given that in the past I was willing to sink tens of billions of credits into projects that might not see positive returns for decades. Some of the projects in planning – if they made a return at all might end up taking centuries to see results at all. Still, with any luck, this venture was going to get us a bit more knowledge and power thus improving our relative position on the Anomaly.
All that left was the discussion as to who to bring with us on this voyage. I was hesitant to bring anyone beyond Katlyn and myself from our side of things given that the castle was still a prime target for our enemies to focus on and was an irreplaceable asset for us too. Valith was tempting though, both for his Force abilities and just due to him being an Iron Sith. On the other hand, he – along with Zin – were some of the best defenders we had and thus were the most valuable guarding the castle against our enemies. So probably leave him behind for the time being and maybe have the castle come in to here for support while we continued upriver.
On the plus side of things, despite us being cut off from the Protectorate, all signs were pointing towards us being able to maintain a sizable coalition of allies and friends with resources to keep us functioning as a significant regional force for the foreseeable future. There were still some relatively larger powers at play, but they were suffering from many of the same issues that kept me from flooding this place with several million soldiers. So in all, we might be one of more effective factions in the region. And if Starfleet agrees to send Starfleet reinforcements, that further secure our position against that Sith and Rakata army long enough for us to regain contact with the Protectorate.
I was just worried that reinforcements from the Protectorate were already underway and likely to fall into whatever trap befell our original support fleet.
Creative Nonsense 
Hurray! For it has been a while!